The Day Before You
by southernbelle4
Summary: The day before Josh met Donna, Sam met Ainsley, and Charlie met Zoey. Sometimes life takes unexpected turns in the road that we, in our infinte human nature, cannot be prepared for.


The Day Before You

By SouthernBelle

PG

J/D, S/A, C/Z

Pre-Romance

I make no money off this. West Wing is owned by Sorkin, Wells, NBC, and Co. The song is by Rascal Flatts. They all own this stuff.

Basically this is the story of my all-time three favorite West Wing "couples" (though that is wishful thinking on my part) the day before they met one another. Some of this is fictional, others have been implied in the canon of the show.

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* * *

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**I had all but given up**

_**On finding one that I could fall into**_

_**On the day before you**_

_**I was ready to settle for**_

_**Less than love and not much more**_

_**There was no such thing**_

_**As a dream come true**_

_**Oh, but that was on the day before you.**_

I feel the cool wind blow through my hair, and I hear the sounds of freedom buzzing in my ears. Okay, so maybe that has more to do with the insects whizzing past my head. But it sounds like an escape for me.

It took me a year to get up the nerve to leave him. I know that he needed me to help him, but I wasn't helping myself during that time. A full time secretarial position and then part time waitressing?

He is a good guy, and was just trying to get through med school, but I can't do it anymore. I had wanted to be in love, to have my prince charming, but he turned out to be a toad. Back to the drawing board, I suppose.

So yesterday I packed my old convertible and hit the interstate. I had nowhere in particular to go, but I just wanted to drive far away from the constraints that my ex put on me.

I see a sign that designates the turn to Vermont. Vermont. That sounds like a nice quiet place to start over. I move over in the lane that leads to the exit. I find myself in little town on the east side of the state, not far from the New Hampshire state line. As I do this, my stomach growls, and I realized that I haven't eaten for six hours. Lunchtime.

I see a cute little diner on the side of the road and pull into the parking lot. I go in and order a steak and cheese sandwich in homage to my Wisconsin roots and my love for Philadelphia, which I fell in love with on a childhood vacation.

I grab a local paper and flip through the tattered pages to see what was going on in this area of the country.

"Bartlet launches his '...For America' national campaign."

It was an article about the New Hampshire governor Josiah Bartlet and his campaign for President. I'm reading through the article as the waitress brings my meal.

"He'd make a good President," she says. "He seems to be a good man."

The wheels are turning in my mind. I like politics. Heck, I was a political science major for a while, and I was a secretary as well. I'm certain that they could use someone to answer phones and stuff. Yeah, that's what I'm going to do.

"Excuse me, Miss?" I ask my waitress as she passes again.

"Yes?"

"How do I get to Nashua, New Hampshire?"

* * *

Damn. That's not good. The President just missed a live interview from here in Nashua.

"What the hell just happened?" Sam says as he pops his head into my so-called 'office.' They might as well put me in the basement.

"I don't know."

"Joshua!" we heard one of the most intimidating women ever, yell. "I sent you a memo and an email and a voice mail about canceling the interview."

"Don't blame it on me, CJ! I never saw nor heard a single one of the things you sent me."

We all looked around the cubical, and it became clear as to why I screwed this up.

"We've been in this office a few months, and your desk already looks like Florida in the middle of and above average hurricane season! You can't turn on your computer because you can't find the power button. You can't find your power button because you have stacks of boxes full of memos much like the one I sent you concerning this. And do you EVER check your voice mail?"

Sam and I just stared a CJ for a few seconds after her rant, until my best friend spoke up.

"She's right you know. You need a secretary or, you know, a full time maid, whichever is available."

"Thanks, Sam."

He and CJ left me alone to wallow in my literal pigsty. I screwed up, and I had to prepare for the verbal lashing I know is coming from the Governor at tomorrows campaign meeting. I tried to think of the last time I had a clean office.

It brought Candace to mind, again. She was my secretary when I worked on the hill for Senator Hoynes. She used to keep my office in ship shape condition. It didn't take long for things to become less than professional, and more personal. We had a brief dalliance, a timely indiscretion.

It only went on for a few months, and no one knew about it. Then her father got sick...cancer. So she made the choice to fly back home, to Nevada, to be with him as he died. She never came back, in fact, she never made it to her father. Her plane crashed a few miles outside of DC. I haven't been with anyone since.

My sister Joanie, Candace and our unborn baby, who no one knew about but us, they all left me. I just can't help wondering who is next. I look on my desk, and see a note I wrote to myself a week ago to call my father.

I pick up the phone...

_**Now you're here and everything's changing**_

_**Suddenly life means so much**_

_**I can't wait to wake up tomorrow**_

_**And find out this promise is true **_

_**I will never have to go back**_

_**To the day before you**_

"Sam, can you to hit Capital Beat tomorrow?"

I heard CJ's voice before I saw her exit out of her office. Finding a place to hide wasn't easy, and she caught me before I had a chance to even look.

"Do you mean 'can I' in the sense of you asking me or telling me?"

"Well, I was asking, but since I already told them you'd be there, then, yes, that could be seen as telling."

"Find someone else."

I give her a charming smile hoping that will deter her. Unfortunately CJ has known me long enough that it doesn't phase her anymore. Instead she looks me in the eye and stops me cold with one stringent gaze.

"Sam, please. It's about the education bill. You've worked on it for five months! You know that thing backward and forward. I can't just send some Jr. Level staffer to Capital Beat."

"CJ..."

"You'd be opposite Wegeland."

Now I really am stuck. She's right. There isn't a Jr. Level staffer who can go up against the major opponent of a bill we all worked so hard to get passed through congress. I cave.

"Okay. I'll do it."

"Thanks."

I go to my office and consider prepping for the debate, but realize that I'm good. I don't need to prep for this. Like CJ said, I know this stuff backward and forward. Hell, I practically wrote the bill myself. I'll have no problem kicking Wegeland to the proverbial curb.

I go through the stack of mail I grabbed on my way out of my apartment this morning. Bill...bill...advertisement...bill...wedding invitation. Ugh. After ten years of getting these things from friends, I still get this empty feeling in my stomach, especially after the whole Lisa thing blew up in my face. This one, I realize, is from my only other remaining single frat brother.

So it's official—Sam Seaborn is the biggest loser from the frat house. Yeah, I work in this kind of important building, complete with military protection and secret service agents and miscellaneous dignitaries and world leaders, not to mention the President. But once I leave, I go home to nothing.

I push the feeling of emptiness away and grab my briefcase. I shut my door, forgetting about the statistics for tomorrow's debate.

* * *

"Hello...Yes...Yes, I remember you...Right...Tomorrow night?...Well I'm flattered, but I've never...That's true...Can you give me specifics...The White House Deputy Communications Veto...Got it...Thank you...I hope I will...Goodbye."

As I put the phone down, I have a terrible thought. What have I gotten myself into? I can't go on a national cable show and debate the White House Deputy Communications Director on the Education Bill. I've been out of law school for three and a half years, and haven't been in Washington but for two and a half of those. Seaborn is much more experienced in debate...and other things I've heard. Yes, I did see the call girl pictures.

But that's irrelevant. No good can come out of this. Either I go on Capital Beat and get the crap verbally beat out of me by an arrogant Democrat and can never work in politics again, or I get on the bad side of the White House. Neither option is all that compelling.

My doorbell rings as I sit at my home desk, deep in thought.

I open the door to see Bruce and Harriet, two of my best friends in Washington. The first thing I notice is the large diamond on Harriet's hand. My mind temporarily veers from my problems.

"Congratulations, you two!"

I grab Harriet's hand to get a closer look.

"Thanks, Ainsley."

"So when are the wedding bells going to be ringing?"

"We haven't talked about it."

"So that leaves you, Missy. Last one on the single train."

"Thanks for the reminder, Bruce."

They both enter my apartment as I again brush aside my own loneliness for my friends' happiness and excitement...the story of my life.

Harriet picks up the paper I was writing on during my last phone call.

"Ainsley, what's this?"

I grab it from her quickly.

"It's nothing. So how did Bruce propose?"

I purposely tried to change the subject. It didn't work.

"Uh-uh. Don't stray from the topic at hand, counselor. That paper said 'Capital Beat, tomorrow, Education Bill and Sam Seaborn.' What's the deal?"

I slump down in my desk chair.

"I met the new producer of Capital Beat at a party a week ago, and we got on the topic of the Education Bill Veto, and apparently I impressed him. So he wants me on tomorrow night. Apparently Wegeland cancelled."

"And you're debating Seaborn?"

"Yeah," I sigh.

"The guy is an arrogant jackass."

"But he is smart and a good debater, Bruce. This really is a no-win situation for me. Either I look like a pathetic excuse for a Republican and get smothered by the opponent or the White house puts a bounty out on my head."

Harriet goes in a different direction.

"Well, I've seen Seaborn, and personally, I can think of worse things than being smothered by him. Plus, you are a natural. You'll do great."

"I hope you kick his ass from here back to California," Bruce added.

"That's classy, sweetie."

Harriet and Bruce continue to sweetly argue, and I just put my head on my desk. I have to get caller ID, I think to myself. That way I will know not to pick up when TV Producers call.

_**In your eyes I see forever**_

_**It makes me wish that my life never knew**_

_**The day before you**_

_**Oh, but heaven knows those years without you**_

_**Were shaping my heart for the day**_

_**That I found you**_

_**You're the reason for all that I've through**_

_**Then I'm thankful for the day before you**_

I don't know what I'm doing here. The White House? I'm from the wrong side of the tracks. My whole life has turned into one big 'what the hell just happened' moment. Like when I got the phone call.

"Your mother is dead." Those were four words, I could have gone my entire life without hearing and I would have been fine. Anyone could. Forced to raise Deanna, I was suddenly playing Father, Mother and Brother. I knew that Employee was the next title I had to take. College student wasn't a possibility.

My grades allowed me to apply for some pretty decent jobs, and I was working at a country club, which paid fairly well. Not as much as I would have liked, but we were able to get by. But after a short time of getting treated like my ancestors in a southern plantation, I found it wasn't worth it.

I was sitting in a restaurant, looking at the classifieds, when a woman named Debbie Fiderer sat down beside me. We talked, and she said that she could get me one of the best jobs in town. I went with her to what I thought was a human resources office, which turned out to be a big white house.

I thought I was filling out an application for a messenger job, but next thing I know I'm meeting with Josh Lyman. The deputy chief of staff, and I'm confused as hell as to what was going on.

I finally can sit back and take a breath. I feel for the first time in months that my sister is fully taken care of, I have a great job, and will be able to take some classes in the next few semesters. I'm thinking law school.

The only area of my life that isn't fulfilled right now is in the romance department, but my life before and this job really were not conducive to dating. That'll just have to wait.

Anyway, That's how I got here, and I still can't believe it.

I walk into the Oval Office, to give some messages to the President.

"Sir, the First Lady gave me a message."

"Sure, Charlie. Shoot."

"Well, she told me to keep an eye on what you eat."

"Of course she did."

"And she talked to Zoey, who I assume is your youngest daughter, and said that she's going to be back in town tomorrow and will be looking at Georgetown. Eat dinner with her."

"Thanks Charlie."

* * *

Ugh. I hate all of this security. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not. It's not normal! Although very little about being the President's youngest daughter is normal. I can't even have a normal dating life. My boyfriend, well, ex boyfriend in New Hampshire couldn't handle it, that's for sure.

Tony and I have been friends for years, then we started dating when we were sophomores. He could handle being the boyfriend of a Governors daughter, and even a Presidential candidates daughter, but now...

Why am I worried about this? I'm starting college in the fall, where I am certain to meet men who are much more mature than Tony. We were high school sweet hearts, and those things never last.

"Bookbag is moving."

I get so sick of hearing that. My code name is so childish. Who comes up with these things?

I swear I have the most overprotective father in the world. I just want to do things on my own, you know? But that's part of the deal.

"Zoey, I spoke to the Housing Chair at Georgetown, and she can get you in privately tomorrow evening, and your mother called to tell you to have dinner with your father at the White House tomorrow night."

Oh-no he will probably want to make chili since mom is out of the country.

"She also said not to let him make chili...or if he does, at least make it good."

I laugh to myself...It will definitely need oregano.

_**Now you're here and everything's changing**_

_**Suddenly life means so much**_

_**I can't wait to wake up tomorrow**_

_**And find out this promise is true**_

_**I will never have to go back**_

_**The day before you...**_

Ugh...how many times do I have to tell him? He wants to help run the country?

"I'm Donna Moss."

* * *

She really wants me to let her work on this campaign...she certainly is persistent. That could be a good thing. Besides, she is kind of cute.

"Answer the phone."

"Josh Lyman's Office"

* * *

He handed me his security tag. This could work out well.

_**Was the last day I ever lived alone,**_

_**And I'm never going back**_

"Sam Seaborn"

He looks pretty harmless and mildly attractive, but looks can be deceiving. Strong handshake, though.

* * *

"Ainsley Hayes."

She makes me feel old, and that's not a feeling that I'm used to in this town. Oh well, that just means she'll know less. Sweet voice, though. Maybe I could take it easy on her.

You know what? Even Jacka...Donkeys can be really cute. But obviously not so bright. Oregon?

* * *

Oops!

_**Now you're here and everything's changing**_

_**Suddenly life means so much**_

Shut up, Josh! I can introduce myself just fine...I guess.

"Charlie Young"

* * *

He has a really great smile.

"Zoey Bartlet."

* * *

I taste the chili she offers me. Eck...it needs cumin.

_**I can't wait to wake up tomorrow**_

_**And find out this promise is true**_

_**I will never have to go back**_

_**To the day before you**_


End file.
